Fall 2002
ARTICLES
COLUMNS
- Fiddle Tune History, by Andrew Kuntz
- The Practicing Fiddler: Music and Sports, by Hollis Taylor
- Cross-Canada Fiddle Tour: Ontario's Peter Dawson, by Gordon Stobbe
- On Improvisation: Learning by Ear -- Demystified, by Paul Anastasio
- Cross-Tuning Workshop, Part 18: AEAE/GDGD, by Jody Stecher
- Violin Makers: Bob Kain: The Fiddler's Violin Maker, by Bob Buckingham
- Reviews of Recordings & Books
- Events
TUNES
- Now & Then, by Larry Franklin, transcribed by Matt Wyatt
- Lady Charlotte Campbell's Reel, by Robert Mackintosh, transcribed by Jack Tuttle as played by Alasdair Fraser
- Bourrée du Placard, traditional bourrée transcribed by Peter Anick as played by Xavier Vidal
- Es aici lo mes de mai, traditional ronde transcribed by Peter Anick as played by Xavier Vidal
- Kemps Jegg, Fiddle Tune History column
- Jackie Layton, Fiddle Tune History column
- Jack Lattin with Variations, Fiddle Tune History column
- The Foxhunter's Reel, transcribed by Jody Stecher as played by Patrick Kelly, Cross-Tuning Workshop
- Corey's Capers, by Peter Dawson, Cross-Canada Fiddle Tour column
ARTICLE EXCERPTS
 Photo: Mike Torian
Larry Franklin: Nashville Session Man / Texas Hall of Famer
By Paul Shelasky
Larry Franklin is descended from a family of legendary Texas breakdown fiddlers. His great uncle, Major Franklin, and his father, Louis Franklin, were seldom recorded but vastly influential fiddlers in the Texas fiddle style that has become the national "contest" style heard everywhere today. Larry Franklin was winning most of the major fiddle contests while still in his teens, and has gradually evolved into the all-around musician and top call Nashville session pro that he is today. He also has a new solo album under his belt. Add three Grammies and his recent induction into the Texas Fiddlers' Hall of Fame, and you have an all-around winner!
When and where were you born?
I was born in Sherman, Texas, August 5, 1953.
What were your fiddle influences? At what age did you start?
I started maybe a month and a half before my eighth birthday.
You learned from your dad. Any other fiddlers?
Well, mainly my dad -- but, you know, my dad was good friends with Norman and Vernon Solomon, Benny Thomasson, and just a whole lot of people. There were impromptu get-togethers whenever anybody could. They went to these fiddling contests as much to see each other and play with each other as to compete. I'm sure they were happy to win some money, but they were definitely in it for the friendship.
Did you get to hear Texas Shorty?
Texas Shorty was in, I believe, the first contest I entered. The first contest I ever entered was in Hale Center, Texas -- west Texas near Plainview. I'd been playing for two weeks at that point. My dad taught me "Rubber Dolly" and "Boil Them Cabbage Down" and he let me go with him. It was quite a trip. Eck Robertson was there -- we had breakfast with him. For me, it was like sitting across the table from Roy Rogers. I was mesmerized when I heard him play, and he looked like wild Bill Hickok. I had never heard anybody yell and sing while they were playing the fiddle before. I was in the eighteen and under group. Byron Berline won first -- I think he was eighteen and I was seven. Mike Solomon, Vernon Solomon's son, won second and I don't remember who won anything else. But the reason I remember that is Mike Solomon split his prize money with me.
That's good!
I must have looked pretty disappointed. He just came over and gave me half of it. It really kept me going. Mike was several years older than me, so I was already looking up to him -- he was a good fiddle player. There weren't a lot of kids playing fiddle back then like there are now -- just a few people to look up to....
Did you play guitar back-up for your dad before you took up fiddle, or after?
No, I started trying to play fiddle at seven and I didn't start playing guitar until I was about twelve. Once I learned how, I started playing back-up for my dad and he'd play back-up for me and we'd go to contests and help each other.
What notable contests have you won that you'd like to mention?
The one at Crockett, Texas. They call it the World Championship. I won that when I was sixteen. I won so many contests when I was fourteen to sixteen years old that I guess I won most of them. We mainly went to Texas and Oklahoma.
Did you compete with your dad at those contests?
We did. Sometimes they would have them where the different age groups would play off against each other for a Grand Champion kind of thing. A couple of times it happened where I won the young group, my dad won his age group, and Major won the old group. That was intimidating. I think I somehow won at least one of those play-offs but I for sure didn't think I won by any means. I was so young I wasn't able to partake of the beverages going around and, at that point, maybe I did out-play them a little bit. When they'd get together on the weekends, I'd go to bed -- they'd be playing. When I woke up -- they'd be playing. When I'd go to bed the next night -- they'd still be playing!
Did you ever get to Weiser or the Grand Masters?
Well, I did go to the Grand Masters the very first year -- I think it might have been 1970. I got third place that year. Vernon Solomon won, Dick Barrett got second. I went back when I got out of the Army and I think I got second one year and maybe third one year, and then my professional playing prevented me from ever getting to go again. I just kind of got out of the contests.
What kind of bands have you played with since your contest days?
The first band that got some notoriety was the Cooder Browne Band. We formed in north Texas and moved to Austin when the whole Willie Nelson/Austin music scene started taking off. Willie kind of took us under his wing and signed us to his Lone Star Records and we did one album, put it out and toured with Willie. We later disagreed on some directions that we wanted to go. I also play guitar and the group was asking me to get away from the fiddle. I was wanting to play the fiddle and I was trying to find guitar players to fill that spot. They never accepted anybody I brought in -- that was the whole reason that fell apart.
After that I said, "I know one way I'll get to play the fiddle," and I went and started my own band -- the Larry Franklin Band. We were mixing swing music with country rock and that sort of thing. I did that for another three or four years with that band and played out that situation. I then went to work with Asleep at the Wheel and I played with them for seven years.
Fantastic! They're one of my favorite bands.
Yeah, that was really a lot of fun. Of course, fiddle is kind of a driving instrument for that band. I got to play all I wanted to. Those three bands totalled made up about fifteen years of touring and playing and, at that point, I'd about figured out that I needed to slow down a little bit, so that's when I moved to Nashville and pursued a studio career, and I've been here ever since. I've been here almost eleven years.
So I'll bet you've recorded with just about everyone.
I have recorded with a lot of people -- I've been very lucky. Of course, things are a little different now than they were a couple of years ago, when everybody and their brother was getting record deals and making records, so it's a lot thinner now but, yeah, I'm lucky to be one of the top call players in town. There's a lot of great musicians here. There don't seem to be that many fiddle players that are getting the studio calls, but the ones that do are really great players like Stuart Duncan, Aubrey Haynie and Glen Duncan.
Who were your influences in swing playing?
I guess probably anybody that played with Bob Wills would be some of my original influences. Then, as I started trying to broaden myself a little bit, I started listening to Vassar Clements and Stéphane Grappelli, and I kinda zeroed in on Johnny Gimble. Between those three guys, well, I've got more than I can handle. I would say those three in particular. I was just looking for ideas. I was really influenced by a lot of guitar players. Playing guitar a lot, through high school and on in the bands I started working with, it seemed fairly easy for me to apply that to the fiddle -- as far as the blues of B.B. King, Duane Allman and Eric Clapton -- people like that. Just the attitude and the approach seemed to fit with me and so I blended that with the swing stuff.
When I started learning how to improvise, I learned to improvise on the guitar first. You know, playing those Texas contest songs, everybody was telling me, "This is the way the song goes -- play it like this." You weren't supposed to deviate much from it. But then when I'd go play guitar, well, I'd have to play solos. That was totally different.
On the subject of the way a fiddle tune should go -- I've heard that Dick Barrett considered Major Franklin as the expert on how any tune should go.
Yeah, he was. I dare say that nobody could play 'em like him. I never did hear anybody do it. There was nobody that had the same bowing, even to this day.
I hope somebody puts out a CD of Major's live tapes.
Yeah, the recordings of him are pretty slim. What little we have is real impromptu stuff. He wasn't fond of being recorded. We have our little stashes of stuff that we're lucky to have -- it's too bad there's not a lot more.
The stuff Major recorded on that County album is fabulous. I've heard that he wasn't happy -- he didn't think it was his best playing, but it sounded pretty damn good to me.
Oh, yeah, I agree. That album was recorded in my parents' living room. I remember me and Mike Solomon were both there and we both played some and I'm sure there's a tape of that somewhere. Seems like it was the early sixties, so I would have been pretty young -- ten, eleven years old, maybe. But I certainly remember it happening. It was kind of like an episode of Andy Griffith. This guy comes to town with a tape recorder and they all come out of the hills and start playing.
When you were a kid, did you learn any of your dad's or Major's solos, note for note?
Well, I didn't really feel like they were soloing. I just felt like they were playing the song the way they thought it was supposed to go. I didn't realize that Major was improvising a little bit on parts. At that point, I didn't understand that's what he was doing -- I was so young. My dad was pretty consistent in his parts and so, when he taught me a song, I kind of kept playing it that way.
Does your dad still play?
Not very much. He'll get inspired to play occasionally, but he worked pretty hard in his life, you know, farming, and his hands are not in the best condition, but he still has it all in his mind. I'll get him around here once in a while and he'll say, "No, that's not the way it goes!" He'll pick it up and say, "This is the way it goes," and this and that, and I just have to sit back and grin.
How old is your dad?
He's seventy-nine. We were just in Hallettsville, Texas, a couple of weeks ago. I was inducted into the Texas Fiddlers' Hall of Fame this year. [Ed. note: A partial list of past inductees includes Major Franklin, Benny Thomasson, Eck Robertson, Orville Burns, Texas Shorty, Terry Morris, Louis Franklin, Johnny Gimble, Randy Elmore, and Dale Morris.] So, I went and picked my parents up and they went with me down there and he played some. Of course, as soon as he picked up the fiddle, everything else stopped -- it was like E.F. Hutton, you know? Everybody knows that you don't get many opportunities to hear him play anymore. It was good to hear him and, of course, it was hard for him and it kinda wears him out -- he gets out of breath and stuff. It just depends. You catch him in the right mood and he can still play, but it's not easy for him.
Have you studied Johnny Gimble's playing and do you pattern yourself at all after Johnny?
Sometimes I catch myself doing it. I try to think along those lines -- it depends on what kind of song I'm playing. I got to be around Johnny quite a bit when I was playing with Asleep at the Wheel and he would come sit in with us all the time and he was always there when we were recording. We did twin fiddle parts together. I was around him quite a bit, but I was never around Grappelli or anybody like that Johnny's energy is so incredible. That's the thing I really appreciate -- his enthusiasm and his energy for playing. I just hope that I can enjoy it that much at that age....
[For more information, and to order Larry's album Now & Then, visit www.larry-franklin.com]
[Paul Shelasky has performed and recorded with Laurie Lewis, The Good Ol' Persons, David Grisman, and others. He was the California State Fiddle Champion in 1975 and 1981. He currently plays jazz, bluegrass and Irish music. His latest album is called Fiddle Crazy.]
Alasdair Fraser: Scotland's Ambassador of Fiddling
By Michael Simmons
Alasdair Fraser has probably done more to introduce people to the beauty of Scottish music than any other fiddler. He has released ten CDs on his own Culburnie label; he has founded two fiddle workshops -- the Valley of the Moon Scottish Fiddle Workshop in his adopted home of California, and the Gaelic College Fiddle Course in his native Scotland; and he plays concerts around the world, both as a solo performer and with his band Skyedance. He was the cover boy for the Spring 1996 issue of Fiddler Magazine, and we recently caught up with him during a break in his busy schedule. He talked to us by phone from his Northern California home about his recent recording projects, including Return to Kintail, a collection of fiddle and guitar duets with Tony McManus, Skyedance:Live in Spain; and Legacy of the Scottish Fiddle, a tribute to the Gaelic fiddle music of the 19th century that inspired him to take up violin as a boy.
What was the genesis of Legacy of the Scottish Fiddle?
The record before Legacy of the Scottish Fiddle was called Labyrinth, which I made with my band Skyedance. All of the tunes on that CD were original compositions, either by myself or one of the other band members, and while the music of Skyedance is in the Gaelic tradition, the arrangements are contemporary. My musical journey is cyclic. Sometimes I push forward, like my work with Skyedance, and other times I need to get back to the music I grew up with -- the Scottish fiddle music of the 18th and 19th centuries. So for me, Legacy of the Scottish Fiddle is a journey back to the well, to the source material that inspired me when I first started playing fiddle, and continues to inspire me to this day. I really enjoyed recreating the fiddle and piano sound of my childhood with Paul Machlis, who I've played with for years. The hardest thing has been deciding which tunes to leave out, but in the back of my mind I know I've given myself permission to make as many records of this music as I want. I don't know how long a series this will be, but I will enjoy finding out.
I noticed that unlike many other Celtic styles of music, you are able to credit the composer who wrote the tune.
That's true, Scottish fiddle music tends to be better documented than other Celtic styles. I think that's primarily thanks to the efforts of Niel and Nathaniel Gow, who wrote down and published their famous collections of tunes in the 18th century. They inspired other fiddlers to do the same. On this CD I play tunes composed by fiddlers who played in the Northeast region of Scotland like William Marshall and James Scott Skinner, who published a couple of good collections. But while it's lovely to have all of these wonderful tunes available from the 19th century and earlier, the downside is that many people today treat the written text as gospel. The tunes aren't allowed to roam as widely and evolve as wildly as they might have otherwise. I believe we should respect the written versions, but at the same time the spirit of many of these tunes is being lost. But I find this music so satisfying because I get to play in Gaelic, as it were.
Gaelic? Could you elaborate on that?
I try to use the older sounds and rhythms of the Gaelic language when I play these traditional tunes. When I started studying Scottish fiddling seriously when I was younger, I noticed that there was a correlation between the way people spoke and the way they played. In Aberdeenshire, for example, they speak with a very distinct brogue called the Doric, and they're very proud of it. If you or I went there tomorrow, we would be very enthusiastically told the proper way to say a sentence in Doric. And I hear that same vocal phrasing in their fiddle playing. Doric is very different from an Edinburgh accent or a Glasgow accent, which has a bit of an Irish inflection. But I feel that if you listen carefully to the accents of the speakers as you move across Scotland, you can learn lots of new ways of adding local color to your fiddling. I see it as a way to move further away from a generic treatment of the tune, to find greater depth in the music. If you listen to the ways people talk, to their rhythms, and the way they pronounce consonants and vowels, the stresses they put on certain syllables and so forth, you can pick up different ways of entering and leaving notes, nuances of tone, and ways to phrase. The fiddle tradition used to be passed on orally, and it seems only natural that local spoken accents would affect the way people phrased the tunes. Today in Cape Breton you hear people talk about how certain fiddlers have more Gaelic in their music, and I don't think it's an abstract concept. I think that people are hearing a Scottish accent, a Gaelic voice as it were, in the music....
What music are you planning for the second volume of the Legacy of the Scottish Fiddle?
The next CD will be associated with Edinburgh and the music that Robert MacIntosh and Nathaniel Gow played in the city at the end of the 18th century. Nathaniel Gow was a remarkable man. He lived in Edinburgh and as well as being a fiddler he played cello and trumpet, and was even named to the post of the King's First Trumpeter. He wrote dance tunes and dabbled in 18th century compositional ideas like themes and variations and so forth. I like to fantasize about him going back home to visit his Gaelic-speaking father Niel and playing these old strathspeys and reels. I think he would have played the notes in the cracks, because the western scale hadn't quite taken over yet. He would have played the old modes as well. What a great richness of possibility for any musician. He had his formal, classical music in the city, but he also played the ancient, wilder Gaelic music as well. And that's the thing that's inspired me, and it's something I strive for in my own work -- to be that versatile. After the Gow CD, I'll do one of the music of the Highlands. When I make that CD I'll probably use fewer tunes from the written page and go back to the folk memory and play tunes that don't appear in any of the collections....
[Michael Simmons, Fiddler Magazine's Review Editor, is a guitar player and writer living in Mountain View, California.]
 Solas, Winifred Horan at left. Photo: Courtesy Shanachie Entertainment
Winifred Horan: Classical Fiddling
By Candace Horgan
It wouldn't be stretching matters to say that Solas is one of the leading bands of the recent Celtic music resurgence. The band will be releasing their fifth record in 2002, titled The Edge of Silence. Solas has grown to include seven members, among them All-Ireland multi-instrumental champion Seamus Egan, accordion player Mick McAuley, singer Deirdre Scanlan, and guitarist Donal Clancy. Bassist Chico Huff and percussionist Steve Holloway also toured with the band in 2000 and play on the new CD. Classically-trained fiddler Winifred Horan is a big part of Solas' success; Horan mixes in classical touches with traditional styles to great effect on traditional tunes like the "Granny Quinn's" set on Solas's last CD, The Hour Before Dawn. Besides her contributions to Solas' latest CD, fans will get to hear another side to Horan's playing on her forthcoming solo CD, tentatively set for a Summer 2002 release. In December, 2001, Horan talked at length about her classical background, her playing with Solas, and her solo project.
When did you start playing the violin, and what got you started on it?
I started playing piano first when I was little. My dad was a trumpeter in a jazz band and played piano. He was born in New York but raised in Ireland. Mom was born in Ireland. When they emigrated to New York, he played in the Blue Notes, and when they started having kids he didn't have the time to indulge. He was a carpenter by trade. He got me started; the family was pretty musical through the years. I started on piano when I was six and he was my first teacher. I remember learning from him when I was really little. Then when I got a bit older, I might have said, "I want to play the violin." He may have found one in a hock shop; he may have picked up an old violin and being a carpenter he was really into rebuilding things, so rebuilding old instruments became a hobby for him. I remember loads of fiddles around the house, so he took me for fiddle lessons, which is when I started playing Irish music. We were also involved in Irish dance at the time and there was always Irish music in the house. Dad exposed us to all types of music. He only got into traditional music when he moved to New York. My first fiddle teacher was Maureen Glynn, and she lived in Brooklyn. At the time, there were a few people who had quite a lot of students, like Martin Mulvihill, who taught kids in the Bronx like Eileen Ivers. We went once a week for fiddle lessons and played in Ceili bands, and at the same time learned Irish dance from Donny Golden. He is still teaching.
When I was about eleven or twelve, there was a German woman in our neighborhood of Rockaway Beach who took private students in her home and taught classical piano and violin. She was sort of my first teacher on the classical side of things. She had all the neighborhood kids. When I got to high school age, about twelve, thirteen, there was a competition for the Mannes School of Music in Manhattan to get into the preparatory school and I auditioned and got in. That was weekends for the rest of my high school years, going into Manhattan for private lessons in orchestral music and chamber music. I really loved it, and when it came time to take the SAT's and go to college, my parents and the Mannes School introduced me to various conservatory options, like Manhattan School of Music, and I ended up choosing the New England Conservatory of Music.
When I got out of college, I started auditioning for orchestras, but I realized I didn't have the nerves of steel you need to go through that. I worked in local string quartets to stay in touch with the classical side of things. Some of the auditions for the symphonies were in places I didn't want to live, and they weren't big orchestras.
Who were some of your early influences?
I'd have to say as a little girl in the house, it was just music. Dad played everything, so I didn't know what I was listening to. Influences include everything I listened to. As I got older, my first major influence playing Irish music was Seamus. Sharon Shannon was also an influence, and so was Liz Carroll. Those three are my top influences. And there are many others. I really love listening to singers, too, so I can't pinpoint anything. I love listening to the background singers. On the classical side, I really love this Russian violinist called David Oistrak; my dad had a record of his. His son Igor was also a violinist. Dad had a copy of a recording the two did playing the Bach double violin concerto, and I remember being blown away by the massive sounds they got.
You attended the New England Conservatory of Music. Did you have any difficulties with people there regarding your pursuit of traditional music?
I wasn't playing trad music at the time, and my friends at the Conservatory wanted to see me dance and play the fiddle at parties, but I had got so far away from it that it felt foreign. I had told them about that background, but it was something I left for a while, and when I got back into it I was blown away by the amount of tunes there are to learn. I had gotten so accustomed to reading music. Your memory isn't tested by being in an orchestra and reading the music in front of you. I think it would take years to learn every tune. I am amazed by bluegrass and Irish musicians who have this vast repertory. Not that I gave up trying to learn all the tunes, but it is a long battle. This relates back to the classical training; some of the really common tunes people were playing were so beautiful to me because they were new to me again; Seamus thought that was really funny, because those tunes were being played constantly in sessions.
When did you start to enter competitions, and how did they help your playing?
They didn't help my playing because I was a nervous wreck. I won one when I was young; my nerves still get the better of me sometimes. For some reason, I didn't have the same problem with the dancing competitions. I did a couple of fiddle competitions in New York, and also some classical ones. When it came to playing by myself, I completely freaked out. I must have entered my first one when I was around nine. It was good in that I got to mix with other people from Ireland. I went to Ireland once and that was it; I didn't really get involved in the competition, but Seamus did. He fared pretty well in them, but also had the same sort of dislike for them. I don't know how beneficial they are if you get so nervous. It took me a long time to get over stage fright; I think I got more paranoid as I got older. I don't like musicians to be completely fearless; I am jealous of that. I think there is something charming about going to a gig but you know the musicians aren't completely full of confidence.
[Candace Horgan, of Denver, Colorado, covers music for the Denver Post, Relix, and other publications, as well as musicbadger.com.]
 Jacqueline & Dudley Laufman, aka "Two Fiddles"
Dudley Laufman's "Calling": "Everybody dance!"
By Janet Farrar-Royce
It was 1945 and Dudley had just turned fifteen when he traveled from Arlington, Massachusetts, to begin work on the Mistwold Dairy Farm in Fremont, New Hampshire. It only took one summer of this labor for the young man to know that this was not the career for him, but he did find the passion of his life on that farm. On an early fall Sunday the family invited several of their relatives and neighbors over for a corn roast. After lunch the group sang hymns and then the farmer pulled out his fiddle. His wife sat down at the piano. Soon music and dancing filled the house and lasted until late that night.
His voice is wistful as he remembers the evening that became a turning point in his life. He makes an arch over his head as he describes the rugged low-ceilinged, wood-hewed house filled with the mingling smells of wood smoke, pies and clothes damp with perspiration. His eyes twinkle and we all smile as he describes how the glow of the fireplace light shone on a young girl's yellow hair. To keep the memories and images of such good times and close community alive would become a driving force of this romantic young man. Thus Dudley Laufman began a fifty-five-year agenda to perpetuate authentic New England contra dance figures and tunes so that others could feel the same resonance, the same sense of community that he still feels.
His Mentor: Ralph Page
The next decade of Dudley's life began by following Ralph Page, the caller credited by many people in New Hampshire as the man responsible for the renewed interest in New England country dancing. Although he attended a few other callers' dances, Dudley didn't like seeing beginners, adults and children being left out of the more complicated dances of other callers. He agreed with Ralph Page's manner of choosing music and dances that allowed everyone to participate most of the time. To this day Dudley is swift to express his respect for Ralph Page and he is proud to participate annually in the "Ralph Page Legacy Weekend" at the University of New Hampshire.
In order to play in the band and thereby take on a more active learning role, Dudley taught himself to play first the harmonica and accordion and then the fiddle. He sought out musicians who could teach him not only the tunes that Ralph was using, but ones that went back to sources from the British Isles and French Canada. Tunes like "Prince William" and "La Grondeuse" were among his favorite "new" old tunes in those early years. Dudley began to call a few dances himself and then he taught himself to play accordion or fiddle and call at the same time.
But as the years went by, Ralph Page wasn't moving with the dance community that he had created. As they became more experienced, Ralph's audiences wanted more complicated dances and more than just the same few well-known pieces at every dance. Dudley's innate talent was soon to be put to use. He was a quick learner and a dedicated student. The young man was ready and the timing was right. Dudley was naturally gathering a following of his own.
The Mystique of Dudley Laufman
The word most often associated with Dudley is "charismatic." He is an independent thinker, an attractive man and a leader. He has always written poetry and still wears his hair in a boyish, unkempt look that is long enough to hang over the turtlenecks that he loves. He is also rugged enough to have built the cabin that he heats with wood that he chops himself.
His return to this more primitive life was in accordance with the free-spirited ideals that were prevalent during his youth. Many other young people drove long distances from their homes and schools to attend his dances because they, too, were searching for a more idyllic way of life. By just being himself and following his own star, Dudley became a guide in a movement that brought country dancing back to the grange halls and church basements of small-town New England.
As Jim Collins said in his article in the December 1995 edition of Yankee Magazine, "He took the torch of a dying oral tradition from the hands of a few old-timers and fired up an entire generation of young people. He took contra dancing out of the history books and made it part of a living lifestyle." By the late 1970s, Dudley became the caller in New England. "Dudley Dances" developed a following that cut across socioeconomic groups throughout the state. The movement of renewed interest in contra and square dancing was firmly established.
David Millstone is a teacher, caller, leader of the band Northern Spy, and producer of the film Paid to Eat Ice Cream. He explains: "In the same way that his mentor, Ralph Page, popularized contra dances for a previous generation, Dudley Laufman was the single individual most responsible for the resurgence of contra dance in the years that followed. Dudley is not just another caller; he is one of a rare breed, a contemporary Dancing Master, an authority on dancing."
A major component of Dudley's success is that he understands that simpler dances are legitimate dances in their own right that are fun for everyone and don't need to be just a prelude to learning intricate contras. Dudley has always been emphatic declaring that dancing is for relaxing and should not resemble work.
Kevin Gardner is a juror for the artists' roster of the New Hampshire Commission on the Arts and a longtime avid dancer. He described Dudley's calling style for me: "Dudley doesn't spend much time teaching a dance. He gives clean, brief instructions and then just plays the music and just gets people dancing. He allows the dance to organize itself as it proceeds. I know of no caller more adept at sizing up a crowd and getting people moving to the music with simple figures. Every Dudley dance is both comfortingly familiar and surprisingly different."
During the 1960s, Dudley traveled throughout New England, bringing contra dancing to large numbers of new dancers. He called thousands of parties, kitchen junkets and events, sharing traditional music and dance with uncounted numbers of people each year. At the now famous 1965 Newport Folk Festival, 16,000 people were clear in their appreciation of Dudley and his country orchestra. One newspaper that covered the event called him "the Pied Piper of Canterbury." By the early 1970s, Dudley was at the height of his popularity and his revival was in full swing. Dancers and musicians arrived at his events, in Dudley's own words, "spilling into the hall like a tipped-over basket of many colored balls of yarn."
Consistent with his inclusive philosophy, Dudley also sought out more traditional contra dance music and dances from the greater New England area. It gave more variety to his dances without forsaking his principals and mission. One of his many publications, Brandy: Seventeen Traditional Québécois Contredanses is an example of Dudley's efforts to keep the traditional New England contra dance repertoire vital and comprehensive. Included in the text are dance directions and historical notes on contra dances that are almost exclusively from eastern Québec. Bob McQuillen, known as the "Dean of New England Contra Dance Musicians," was another mentor and fellow contra dance musician. He credits Dudley as the individual most responsible for researching and expanding the traditional repertoire.
Becoming the Mentor
Dudley became known throughout New England contra dance circles as "The Source," "The Original," "The Last of the Real Thing" and "The Father of New England Contra Dance Fiddling." Dudley willingly shared his tunes and knowledge with scores of musicians who worked with him. His collection of tunes came from diverse sources, and included both centuries-old English country dances, as well as new compositions, a few of his own among them. Soon hundreds of would-be callers and all kinds of musicians came to learn from Dudley. Because of his support and leadership by not just allowing but encouraging sit-ins, there developed a large collection of increasingly excellent musicians that played at Dudley's dances.
In 1998, Greg Boardman, well-known fiddler and caller from Maine, compiled twelve tunes composed by Dudley and a piece each by Haydn, Handel and Mozart adapted by Dudley for dancing into a book entitled, Here's to Every Country Dancer: The Music of Dudley Laufman. It is still a widely used source.
To this day, people still seek Dudley out as he continues to encourage more young people to continue the music and dance traditions he holds dear. It is greatly due to this advocacy that his movement continues to grow. Dudley told this writer that he never views his students as "competition." Instead, he sees them as the best way to further his ability to continue the national revival of traditional social dancing.
Dudley's students also remain uncommonly loyal to their mentor and close to their teacher's society of callers and musicians. It is often said that every caller, dancer and contra dance musician in New Hampshire has learned something directly or indirectly from him....
www.laufman.org; laufman@totalnetnh.net
[Janet Farrar-Royce is a professional classical musician and teacher, as well as the fiddler of The Reel Thing, an ensemble that, with caller Patricia Campbell, continues Dudley's work in the southeast Connecticut area.]
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